The Adventures of Shelby Kent & Sherlock Sullivan
by Tobiwolf13
Summary: Cliche fic. Clark gets turned into a cocker spaniel and spends the week bonding with Shelby who offers quite a bit of advice, especially concerning a certain blonde reporter. Chlark ending.


Author's Note: Thanks are in order to several authors. First, Allyouwanted who's original story "A Girl's Best Friend" was the inspiration for this piece has she graciously let me borrow Sherlock Sullivan for my very own. I'm returning him unharmed and fully flea-dipped by the way. Also, thanks to Rjchasez who made the comment after reading "A Girl's Best Friend" that Clark and Shelby really needed to sit down and have a talk. Well now they've had several. Also, of course, thanks to Elly F who came up with the idea of Shelby fic in the first place (referring to Clark as "The Boy," Chloe as "The Girl," and Martha as "The Woman," and giving the Clark the nickname of "kid" were all borrowed from that fic).

The Adventures of Shelby Kent and Sherlock Sullivan

I was starving. That's usually not something that happens to me very often. The Family keeps me well-fed. It's one of the great parts of living on the farm instead in the scary place---all the food I can eat plus the table scraps that The Boy still sneaks me even though he's not supposed to. I like table scraps the best. Kibble is not great but it's usually what The Family gives me and it keeps my tummy full in between the pieces of bacon and cheese I manage to beg out of The Boy or sometimes, when I'm really lucky, from The Girl.

However, it was morning, the shiny ball was very high in the sky and there was still no kibble. My stomach was beginning to growl and it made me want to too.

Actually, I was a little worried. Things with The Family had been disorganized for a while when The Man went away and then The Woman started spending all her time away in a place called "Topeka." I have no idea where that is, but it means she's almost never home and when she is, she's always reading over papers or falling asleep at the kitchen table. At first, it was hard for anything on the farm to get done. And then The Boy quit going away.

I don't know much about what people do when there not in the house. When The Woman goes away, she wears very nice clothes and carries a heavy box full of paper, and she always comes back tired and talking about budgets, whatever they are. When The Boy used to go away, he'd leave the house with a bag over his shoulder and come back up to the loft and spend hours going over books and scratching at paper.

People really like that stuff, which is another thing I don't understand since you can't eat it. 

The Man's job always made sense though. He took care of the cows and the horses, made sure they got fed, and helped make all the plants around here grow. I think that's good work---anything that makes food is fine by me. Now, since The Man had gone away, The Boy had taken over the work on the farm, and he was usually very good at it. I think it helps that The Boy is fast, very fast. So fast that when he gets going I can't even see him. That's one of those things he can do that other people can't. I think it's because he's not actually human. He looks like it. In fact, most people wouldn't be able to tell that he wasn't unless they saw him do one of his Special Things like make toast with his eyes or mend all the fences on the farm in less than five minutes. But all us animals know it. He smells different, not like anything I've ever smelled except maybe once before when the Tall Girl was here.

She went away before I really got to meet her. A lot of people in The Boy's life tend to do that. The Bald One and Long-Haired Girl were gone now too. The Boy had been very sad about that and had spent even more time than he usually did up in his loft moping about how the two of them were on something called a "honeymoon" in Paris.

Still, even when he was brooding, The Boy always made sure the chores got done on the farm, which started with feeding the animals---mainly me. But it was very late and from the way the cows were mooing and the chickens were squawking, I could tell that they hadn't been fed either.

Something was wrong.

I crept up the stairs to The Boy's room and pushed it open easily with my nose. The sheets on the bed were rumpled, piled high like a nest. I snorted. The Boy tosses and turns a lot when he sleeps and sometimes he ends up buried under all his pillows and comforters. That's why I usually pull them down in the morning to help wake him up. Okay, maybe both of us had been sleeping on the job today. I'd slept with The Woman last night because The Boy had stayed out late in the loft---moping again, no doubt----and I had been so busy seeing The Woman off to Topeka this morning that I hadn't checked on him. I'd just assumed that The Boy would wake up like he always did.

Maybe he should try alarm clocks again, except those tended to get smooshed. Oh well, I guess it was still up to me. I'd just have to be better at waking him up tomorrow.

I jumped up and put my front paws on the bed. They sunk right through the mound of blankets. That was weird. Usually when I do that, I end up landing on The Boy's arm and then he complains, rolls over, and wakes up. Quickly, I jumped up onto the bed and the covers crinkled under my weight. The Boy wasn't on the bed, except that couldn't be right because I could hear the other heartbeat in the room and I could smell him. I knew I couldn't be wrong about that because nothing in the world smells like The Boy.

Alarmed, I started barking. Nothing gets a person's attention more than barking.

A small lump in the middle of the blankets moved and The Boy answered back, "Shelby, give me five more minutes."

Confused, I hopped back off of the bed and grabbed a corner of the blanket, gave a hard tug, pulling it off the bed, and revealed the small Cocker Spaniel puppy in the middle of the mattress. I nudged the little dog gently in the side. He rolled over, yawned, and asked me for another five minutes more. Only this time around did I realize that The Boy had been barking at me when I tried to wake him the first time.

The Boy was The Puppy and The Puppy was The Boy.

That couldn't be possible. I closed my eyes and took a deep sniff of The Puppy one last time and sure enough he smelled just like The Boy, and my nose never lies. Oh well maybe this was one of those Special Things he did that I'd never seen. After all, he'd just learned how to make ice last month by blowing on glasses of water. The Boy---erm The Puppy---could do anything.

Still, I needed food so The Puppy needed to change back so I could have my kibble. I'd even him spare him a bite if he hurried.

I barked again and nudged him hard in the rib. "Wake up."

"Shelby, jeez, I asked for a few more minutes and I…" The Puppy blurred into a sitting position and if there'd been any doubt at all in my mind, it was gone now. Nothing but The Boy moved that fast, and no dog I'd ever met had bright green eyes.

"Hi," I barked.

The Puppy looked up at me, his head tilted to the side in confusion. "What's going on?"

"I'm hungry."

The Puppy shook his head. It was weird to watch because there are a lot of movements that people make that dogs don't. We don't shake our heads back and forth or up and down like people do. Of course, since people don't have tails to wag I guess they have to compensate somehow. "No. I mean, I can understand what you're saying." He flopped back down on to his belly. "Oh man, if this is another power I so don't want it. I don't think Dr. Dolittle-ing is something I want to sign up for."

I quirked my head to the side, "You don't know?"

"Know what? I have to tell you, I am really sick of these powers that just keep popping up. I mean, this one is a little weird and not nearly as bad as worrying about sneezing holes through concrete, but is it too much to ask to have one mostly normal day?"

If that's what he wanted, then the kid was about to have a terrible day. "Nothing else seems a little off to you?"

The Puppy picked up his head and flexed his ears, "I'm having a conversation with my Golden Retriever. Clearly something is very off."

The Boy isn't usually sarcastic with me. Of course, I didn't use to answer back in any way he could understand until now. Besides, I didn't take it personally. He was obviously having a very stressful day. "Okay, well, there is that, but you didn't notice anything else?"

"Like what?"

"I'm bigger than you."

The Puppy blinked and jumped back up on to all four legs. He froze for a second and then looked down at his paws and then back up at me, his eyes wide. "Not again."

"Oh good," I said, letting my tail wag a little. "Then this has happened before. I was getting worried for a second that this was new."

"No, it's not new."

"Good then because if you'd turn back and be a boy again that'd be great. I'm really hungry."

The Puppy lay back down and buried his nose in his paws, a slight whine escaping from his muzzle. "I…um…don't know how."

The Puppy and I were sitting side by side, staring up at the door to the pantry. Unfortunately, The Woman had shut it before going to work today and neither of us could open the door. Even standing on his hind legs, The Puppy barely reached halfway to the door knob and it wasn't like either of us had hands.

"We have a serious problem."

"What would that be?" The Puppy asked, his tail twitching behind him. So far, he didn't seem too worried about having woken up furry, which was odd to me. The Boy worried about everything, in great detail and with loads of angst. It didn't seem like him to go along with something so calmly. At first I thought it was denial, but he assured me that the last time it happened it only lasted a day, so this would be temporary.

Of course, that didn't help us get kibble today.

"Well," I said, swishing my own tail thoughtfully. "All the food is behind the door, kid, and we can't get to it."

"Clark."

"Huh?"

"Clark," The Puppy said, tilting his head at me. "That's my name. You keep calling me 'kid.'"

"Well, usually you're just 'The Boy,' but that doesn't seem to fit very well today."

Floppy ears twitched back and forth in consternation. "You've lived here for two years and you didn't know my name?"

Aw jeez and now he sounded so hurt about it, the last part of his question coming out as a little whimper. "No, ki---Clark, it's not like that. It's just there's The Family and then there's The Woman and The Boy and me. That's just sort of how I thought about it. You're my boy, usually."

He nodded again, that strange human habit that still looked so wrong on a dog. "Okay then. Just for future reference, you can call me Clark."

"I don't know. I kind of like the sound of 'kid.'"

"Makes me sound like a sidekick or like I'm your rookie partner in a buddy cop comedy."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I'll explain movies to you some other time." He walked over to the door and stood on his hind legs, forepaws scrabbling on the wood.

"Trust me. I've tried that a lot of times. It never works."

He scrabbled harder and jumped toward the knob. "I know," he said in between jumps. "If I can just…" Jump. "…reach the knob…" Jump.

"You don't have hands." I reminded. The Boy is supposed to be smart. He got very good grades at school (apparently he and paper get along very well) and he can do all these things with numbers in his head. Math doesn't interest me much unless it involves counting up kibble or more food of some kind, but The Boy really has a talent for it. I think it's one of those Special Things he does. However, for someone so smart, he sure does a lot of stupid things, like forgetting that he couldn't open the knob even if he could reach it. Or being obsessed with Long-Haired Girl when it was so obvious to me and The Woman that it's really The Girl who makes him happy.

He miscalculated his landing and fell flat on his tummy, snorting out a great lungful of air with the impact. It actually made the door rattle. Interesting. "Huh?"

"Huh, what?" The Puppy—sorry, Clark---said, turning back to me. "What's there to 'huh' about?"

"You made the door shake."

"Yeah, sorry about that. It still happens sometimes when I breathe too hard."

"You still can do all your Special Things, can't you?"

"Special Things?" Clark asked, backing into the pantry door and whining a little. 

"Yeah, you know, the Special Things, like how you run faster than even the horses or that you're strong enough to lift the tractor."

"I…um…"

"You know I live here right and that I'm not blind, kid. I've seen you do all sorts of things over the years. It took me a while to figure out that The Man and The Woman couldn't do those things too, but I'm not stupid."

"Well, no. You are really good at learning tricks."

Truth be told, tricks weren't that hard to learn and weren't all that complicated. It was really a question of how motivated I was to do them. I often held out on doing a trick until I was assured at least some form of chocolate as a treat. Like I said, I'm not dumb. "Of course I am." I said, wagging my tail proudly. "Anyway, it's pretty obvious you're different. You don't even smell right."

Clark snorted and reared up a little on his hackles. "Excuse me?"

"You don't smell like anything else anywhere. You're not human."

"Well not right now, no."

Idly I flicked my tail. It was pretty funny. The Man and The Woman had taught Clark to lie all the time. When I first came here, he hid everything all the time from The Girl (even though it was obvious even to me that she already suspected that he could do all his Special Things), and he'd never told Annoying Girl or Long-Haired Girl anything about being special. I just didn't think he'd start hiding it from me now. "Kid, relax."

"I am relaxed."

"That's why you practically have your little puppy teeth bared at me and all your hair is standing on end."

"It is not." He said, then quirked his head and added, "Isn't that a cat thing?"

"Mostly. Calm down. I'm not going to say anything. It's not like I could anyway, right?" My tone was gentle when I spoke. The Boy panics a lot and he doesn't always think before he acts. He'd been trained for a long time not to say anything about what he could do, and I guess he figured I'd never noticed the difference before.

He sat down, a tiny mass of dark curls and sad eyes. "I guess not. Sorry. This is just really weird, even for me." His eyes narrowed. "Does that mean that all the animals know?"

"Yup. We can all smell it. Not that we care. Honestly, as long as you keep handing out dinner and breakfast on a regular schedule you could be a guinea pig."

"Uh, thanks, I think." He said turning back around to the door. "Speaking of food, I still have no idea how to get breakfast…um," he added, looking up at the clock, "I mean lunch."

See this is why I was around. Someone had to be here to point out the obvious to The Boy and make sure he didn't get into too much trouble on his own. The Girl and I pretty much had that job split between us. "You still have your powers."

"We covered that."

I felt my ears droop. Dealing with the kid can be exhausting. At least this time around he could actually understand me. "Knock the door down."

"Mom's going to kill me if I do that."

"And I'm going to starve if you don't."

"But my mom…" He said, his tail tucking itself in between his legs.

It would have been cute if I weren't ready to chew a hole through the carpet. The Boy might be the strongest whatever he is around but he was still scared of The Woman. I didn't blame him. She could be scary when she wanted to be. "Clark, I'm sure if you explain it to her---you know, when you can speak human again----she won't be that upset. Besides, you're one who's going to have to repair the door anyway."

"Oh, right."

I took a deep breath and fought down a growl. Sometimes I was sure The Boy was the only one of his kind around because the others hadn't been clever enough to survive. Maybe being a dog for a few hours would make him smarter. "Good. Could you bust it down, now?"

He nodded and bounded back to where I was. Coiling his hind legs underneath him, he gave a quick sprint---so fast he blurred---and burst through the pantry door in a shower of splinters and broken door hinges. He was right. The Woman probably would kill him. There was wood all over the floor and paint chips and sawdust filtering through the air. A few seconds later, I was treated to the sight of the tiny puppy pulling out a massive bag of kibble as easily as he would have if he'd been a boy, minus the awkwardness of pulling the bag's corner with his teeth instead of with hands.

"I've almost…there…got it." He mumbled, pulling the bag by its bottom corner over to the food dish. He looked down at the dish and then back at the bag. "Oh crap. It's not gonna pour, is it?"

"No hands." I reminded him.

"I really miss those." He added, yanking at the corner with his teeth and ripping a huge hole in the bag. A river of kibble cascaded out of the bag catching Clark by surprise. He let out a yip before being carried away in the surge and washing up at my paws.

Yup, the kitchen was a mess. The Woman was going to kill him.

I leaned down and took a big bite. "Dig in."

He stood up and shook himself off, kibble crumbs and splinters raining off his curls. "Alright but only because I'm hungry."

I paused eating long enough to look up at him. "Kid, let me let you in on a little secret. No dog actually likes eating this stuff, but we'll take what we can get."


End file.
